WAC7500: Bass Stopped Working

Hi, I've been running my WAC7500 for 2.5 years and I've been very happy with it. Unfortunatley, the bass has stopped working completely. The mid and high range sound comes out well, but without any of the low end, the sound is similar to what it would sound like if played through a telephone.

Nothing happened, physically, to the unit. One day it was working fine, and the next day the sound just stopped coming out with any Bass to it.

I've hard power cycled it, and restored factory default settings to no effect. There was no firmware update, or power surge/outage event and the unit is never physically moved around, it just sits on a table in my living room.

Is there any advice or suggestion on what I might do?

Thank you all. I really have enjoyed this unit quite a bit and it's no longer sold in the US market that I know of, so replacing it is going to be next to impossible and it doesn't look like they have anything in their current product lineup which is an exact replacement. Besides, it works perfectly in all other ways. It almost feels like the bass side of the speakers were just unplugged. I can't believe they were blown out as I never listen to it with any extreme volume.

John

Adam,

I live in the UK and have had my Streamium since November 2008. It has now developed exactly the same fault as yours and I'm massively disappointed with the lack of a sensible response from Philips so far. Like you I don't want to lose this 'box' as there doesn't seem to be anything quite like it on the market in the UK. When I purchased this I expected to be using it for more than the less than 4 years I've had it. If this isn't resolved swiftly it will be the very last Philips product I ever buy. They always enjoyed a good reputation here and given other comments on the forums, they are in real danger of being considered unworthy of customer interest. It is so disappointing.

Originally Posted by amikolajczyk

Hi, I've been running my WAC7500 for 2.5 years and I've been very happy with it. Unfortunatley, the bass has stopped working completely. The mid and high range sound comes out well, but without any of the low end, the sound is similar to what it would sound like if played through a telephone.

Nothing happened, physically, to the unit. One day it was working fine, and the next day the sound just stopped coming out with any Bass to it.

I've hard power cycled it, and restored factory default settings to no effect. There was no firmware update, or power surge/outage event and the unit is never physically moved around, it just sits on a table in my living room.

Is there any advice or suggestion on what I might do?

Thank you all. I really have enjoyed this unit quite a bit and it's no longer sold in the US market that I know of, so replacing it is going to be next to impossible and it doesn't look like they have anything in their current product lineup which is an exact replacement. Besides, it works perfectly in all other ways. It almost feels like the bass side of the speakers were just unplugged. I can't believe they were blown out as I never listen to it with any extreme volume.

Hi John, thanks for sharing and I'm sorry for your predicament. I wish I had better news for you. I called and got no help from Philips. The best advice I got from a Philips representative was to take it to a private non-affiliated electronics repair store. As a curious electronics-savvy guy, I decided I'd take it apart myself.

I took the back off the box. The sub-woofer's connector becomes pretty obvious at that point. First I checked to make sure the connector itself was solidly attached, it was. I was then able to (careful not to get shocked) attach a multimeter on the output to the sub-woofer from the amplifier. Zero. There was no signal at all going to it. That tells me something on the amplifier board burned out and that means it's definitely not user-serviceable. Even if I had access to a totally new amplifier board, it would likely be more than even a tech savvy person like me could tackle. What really bothers me is that absolutely nothing happened to the unit. If it had been dropped, knocked over, or subject to an unprotected mains surge, I'd understand, but none of that happened. It's literally never moved in the 2.5 years I've owned it and it's always been plugged in via a fairly robust surge protector.

Ultimately, I had to replace the unit with a competitor's brand which was quite "Grace"ful (if you know what I mean). It's not quite the same, but I don't miss the finicky nature of the Philips OS which drives the Streamium.

Philips really messed up on this one. I was a loyal customer with lots of good things to say about their product. That is, until it stopped working, when they totally shut me out and left me out in the cold. They literally drove me to a competitor. I even told one of the reps I spoke with on the phone that I *wanted* to keep being their customer but they weren't making it possible. Their reps just continued to apologize and say they wish they had something better to tell me, which was rather disappointing.

In a crowded market like this, there are a lot of entrants into this product space, and Philips sadly, dropped the ball on this one badly. They had what's got to be one of the most unique, feature-rich offerings here but evidently left the product line go dead.

Sincere best of luck to you, please share your experience and let us(as well as Philips) know the outcome and what direction you chose. Maybe they'll resurrect the product line in the future if they hear from enough of us.

Kind Regards,
Adam

Originally Posted by JJG

Adam,

I live in the UK and have had my Streamium since November 2008. It has now developed exactly the same fault as yours and I'm massively disappointed with the lack of a sensible response from Philips so far. Like you I don't want to lose this 'box' as there doesn't seem to be anything quite like it on the market in the UK. When I purchased this I expected to be using it for more than the less than 4 years I've had it. If this isn't resolved swiftly it will be the very last Philips product I ever buy. They always enjoyed a good reputation here and given other comments on the forums, they are in real danger of being considered unworthy of customer interest. It is so disappointing.

John

Hi Adam,

A follow up to my earlier reply.
I eventually got a response from Philips support that pointed me to a local repairer of audio and tv equipment. They told me that nearly all manufacturers are taking a short term view and that it's difficult sourcing the genuine spare part for most equipment these days. Having said that they were reasonably confident that they'd be able to either get the genuine part or an equivalent to facilitate a repair. They had the Streamium for a couple of weeks and said it was fixed. It wasn't. I handed it back and they then had it for another 2 weeks. This time it was repaired. I stressed that I didn't want to lose any funcionality and I haven't. The engineer reported that he'd noticed some poor soldering and had sorted that out as well, so now I'm hopeful that it'll last a reasonable time. As for the charge to supply parts and effect a repair, it was £100. The company name for anyone interested in the UK is Central Services in Wickford, Essex. Sorry Adam, that doesn't help you I know, but it shows that with the right engineer it can be done. It may also show that the build quality of products manufactored in the Far East or China isn't necessarily that good.

Hi John, thanks for the update. I'm happy to hear you got yours back in working order. Do you have any idea what part was faulty, or what part was replaced? I'd be curious to know if it was the amplifier going to the subwoofer or something else entirely.

I just ran a calculation, and it looks like £100 is about $160(US). At that price, my new replacement unit was cheaper and has been lot less quirky to use with regard to the build-in operating system behaving itself.

I enjoyed my Streamium while it lasted and I'm still keeping it's companion "Station" unit in my bedroom for late night radio to fall asleep to.

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